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Message: [QUOTE="sun, post: 4683543, member: 11664"] Future HOF quarterback Aaron Rogers hasn't played in a pre-season NFL game in many years to prevent injury. Many MLB stars hardly play in any spring training games to help prevent unnecessary injuries. They practice on the back fields while the minor leaguers play spring training games. Pro exhibition games are mostly used to audition rookies & prospects in game situations. I can't imagine UConn's starters being pushed very hard during the European exhibition tour. In the Cayman Island Tourney & the BE Tourney with games being played close together, the starters may get less PT in the early games, especially against weaker opponents. The same when playing weaker OOC & BE opponents during the season. Paige, Azzi & Edwards may be happy to see their teammates get more PT when warranted in order to stay healthy even if that means less individual national recognition by not being able to pad their statistics. At some point Geno may need to decide whether blowouts are more important than keeping star players healthy for the whole season. His chosen substitution patterns may affect the strategy of how he decides to play some games, whether to employ full court presses or not, or to make complete line changes. UConn has enough players for 2 full teams. Some players won't be ready for as much PT as others, but it's hard to justify some of them not playing much based on a lack of effort when most all of them are gym rats. Geno has already said that he needs to remind some new players to hold back because they want to go too hard in practice. Some of our opponents simply don't have the talent to justify UConn not using liberal substitutions. And even our 2nd string players should be able to maintain a lead once it's established, or they shouldn't be rewarded with PT. But if they can maintain & extend leads then they should be rewarded to preserve healthy stars. Against the top teams then our starters should & will play more, and against weaker teams they'll play less. Even if the subs need to wait every 2nd or 3rd game to play, they should all get reasonable PT commensurate with their ability over the course of the season. UConn only needs to win by moderate scores. Nothing really matters until the NCAAT's unless national rankings achieved by pushing starting players hard are more important than reducing the risk of injury & maintaining healthy stars. I think we all realize that some of our players were over-ranked coming out of high school. But some of them weren't over-ranked. The talented ones should get a chance without needing stars to first sustain an injury. Then there won't be any choice but to play subs. It's like picking your poison, either voluntarily play subs early or possibly be forced to play more subs later as injuries & ailments mount. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach